For many people, the inability to sleep or rest as a traveling passenger on aircraft causes the documented medical disability of jetlag. This can cause sickness and the condition often has severe debilitating physiological, psychological and emotional symptoms of long-term duration.
In addition, a similar malady occurs to travelers on long haul journeys in busses, trucks, trains, cars and other vehicles, often resulting in extremely severe discomfort. Chronic symptoms of, tiredness irritability and physical and emotional exhaustion frequently occur. This syndrome arises, when sleep and absolute rest are prevented by the long journey, extending traveling through natural sleeping times.
The professional long haul bus and truck transport industry recognizes this hazardous phenomenon, and as part of corporate policy and for Occupational Health and Safety legal compliance; schedules compulsory driver and driver's assistant sleep and rest breaks. This policy is necessary to avoid such symptoms leading to travel exhaustion, as these severe symptoms may cause accidents leading to death.
Further major physiological conditions suffered by travelers, are severe neck strain, chronic neck-ache and badly stretched and cramped neck muscles, often requiring chiropractic or physiotherapeutic intervention and/or convalescence to recover. This arises from involuntary neck movement, and/or neck jerking, and/or neck stretching after falling asleep from exhaustion through lack of sleep, on such journeys.
There has been many past passenger seat design proposals with focus on seat headrest design modification to improve passenger head comfort. This focus has been to improve comfort, not to provide head support, to allow sleep. This focus has been on head support design modification by providing 'slightly protruding' winged head supports. These seat designs however, are in extreme conflict with passenger ergonomics operating on passengers, while traveling. The major conflict is that the protrusion forward of the wings on the head support cannot be so prominent that it blocks peripheral vision. Accordingly, the limited winged head support protrusion design is inadequate for supporting the head. This protrusion however is not a design function for head support; it is a headrest, not a head support.
There are also a number of portable quasi head type supports available, such as small neck cushions, shaped, neck collar-type rests and inflatable neck pillows. Although these designs attempt to focus on addressing head support for sleep and rest, the support provided is limited. They do not support the head, as the head requires absolute minimal movement for natural sleep to be possible. These devices therefore only providing limited support and are neck comfort rests, not head supports.
If the passenger needs to sleep or take complete rest with these limited devices, the passenger must rely on neck muscle and tendon structure to support the head to prevent it from involuntarily moving thereby causing the passenger to remain awake, increasing exhaustion. These devices provide only limited support and if sleep does occur, the head is able to sway and fall in motion jerking movement often severely during travel risking strain, soreness and/or injury. With these devices, the risk of assuming that adequate support is being provided when it indeed may not be may constitute a health hazard. This risk may arise, as significant support may not be provided when it is expected and relied upon.